ailbhe: (emer)
I laid Emer on a blankie on the floor and calle dLinnea in to do painting. Linnea hauled on the blankie and tipped Emer off. Painting cancelled, Linnea in isolation for a few minutes. then I called her outside to play there. I gave her a stick of pavement chalk to draw on the patio. She screamed for the whole basket of them - 20 huge chalks. Nope. I walked outwith Emer and a stick of purple chalk myself, talking loudly about starting to draw. She followed and started to draw too.

Then she started to whinge because the patio was sandy. It's sandy because she and her little toddler friends empty the sand out of the sandpit, but no matter. I started to sweep the sand up - I do this periodically, sieve it clean andreturn it to the sandpit. She took the brush and started to sweep the paid-for sand into the flowerbeds, never to be retrieved. I confiscated the brush. She snuck it back. I pulled it out of her hands and put it away inside the house. She snuck it back. I hauled it from her grip and put it in the house and went inside myself. She followed, screaming "NO my CAN'T go inside! My CAN'T!" and grabbed the brush again. I wrested it from her grasp with gritted teeth, and as I hauled it away in grim victory, I bashed Emer's head against the doorframe.

I didn't hit Linnea.

I got Linnea out of the rear hall and kitchen area somehow. I looked at Emer's head to see how much damage I'd done; a large reddening patch and a bit of scraped-back skin on the top of the back of her head. I got Linnea into the front room and turned on the telly, and then I went into the dining room and called NHS Direct.

Careful questioning showed that she wasn't obviously concussed. No blood out her ears, no clear fluid from her nose, no bruising behind her ears, not passed out, not floppy, etc. But four weeks old, so almost impossible to diagnose mild concussion. The NHS Direct woman told me to keep a very close eye on her for 24 hours but other than that, not to do anything.

I went in to Linnea to give both girls some milk, to reunite us in a loving hippie harmony and calm us all down and make us all friends again. The phone rang out whie I did that, which was fine, but then it rang again. So I went and answered it. It was the woman from NHS Direct again, saying that she'd thought about it and thought I should go to A&E, just because the baby was so young. I checked that it wasn't 999 material and called Rob.

He didn't answer his mobile.

He didn't answer his work direct line. I called the main office number and asked to leave a message for him. Urgent but not life or death urgent, I said - I have to take the four-week-old to A&E, please get him to call me as soon as he can. Apparently the woman who answered the phone went and stood by his desk and interrupted his phonecall so he called me back very quickly.

Then I called Nicki to see if she could watch Linnea while we took Emer to A&E. She suggested calling the duty doctor at the local surgery, because it's not far away at all. I did, and she called me back. She understood that SPD + recent c-section + toddler + baby meant I couldn't walk to the surgery, and said that she could come within an hour but if I could get to A&E any faster that was the better thing to do. I agreed to call her if we went to A&E and she said she'd call me to make sure I was in before leaving for the house.

I gathered a nappy bag for Linnea and one for Emer and found my coat and handbag and wallet and the carseat and then Rob came home; I handed him Linnea and he took her to Nicki, and I called a taxi whiel he was out. It arrived back when he did; he put Emer in the carseat (I can't adjust the straps because of the RSI some of you may remember from about the year 2000) and lifted her out to the car (which I also can't do because of the much more recent c-section) and we went to A&E.

It wasn't very busy. Rob got me a cup of machine-made sweet black teaswill, and that steadied me a bit. Although I knew Emer was fine, the second call from NHS Direct rattled me. Anyway, we saw a nurse and a doctor and were assured she was fine. They shone lights in her eyes and asked me a lot of questions about her responses and so on. She's fine. We have a little standard card for care after a child's head injury; I read it quickly and assured the doctor that we'd keep her out of school.

Then we came home. We were gone less than 90 minutes in total, so it was faster than getting a housecall from the doctor 200 yards away as the crow flies. Hm.

I am knackered. But the bump on her head is fine and the graze didn't even bleed. And it missed both fontanelles.

Pls snd chclt.
ailbhe: (Default)
No-one is sitting on me. Emer is asleep lying down in the pram, not in the hugabub, and Linnea has been stuck in front of the telly and I hope she stays there all day or longer.

Along with sneezing, my incisions have also decided now is a good time to develop a cough. We managed peanut butter on toast for lunch. I really need to drink more. And birth injuries from Linnea's delivery mean I now have to leave two children unhappy while I hide in the bathroom and scream.

I must try to reread my nomination for Fiona soon and see if it's worth sending in yet. MORE COMMENT PLEASE.

I think Emer just woke up.
ailbhe: (Default)
Emer woke from a long, leisurely nap just as the beans were almost done (beans for Linnea's lunch; she had about half a 200g tin; 100g contains 0.9g of salt. Dear gods) and the toast had popped. And she needed an immediate nappy change.

I can see that for the next year I will eat all my meals except dinner with a baby on my lap.

Nursing.

And scratching.

Anyway, she's just nodded off, after a solid 90 minutes - maybe more - of awake alert time. I had another go with the hugabub but I'm wearing dungarees which aren't the best for experimenting with it. I'll try the ring sling when she next wakes.

She's my second baby. That's why she's sleeping slumped in the bouncy chair while the toddler watches tv and bounces on an armchair. I'm not sure how long TV will last today; after this (so far, she's watched 7 minutes of Something Special) there's 50 minutes of Big Cook Little Cook, which is loathesome. However, we might have visitors, which would be good.

I really need to clear the dining table and tidy the library. My incision - one of my internal incisions, that is - aches. I'm tired. Linnea did a stinky poo and Emer did a milky poo (explosive, and full of curds) and I cleaned them both up and I'm finding it hard to eat enough.

I wonder how long Emer will sleep for this time.
ailbhe: (Default)
The most amazing drive-by story I've read in a while, possibly even beating My Friend Nicky's story about being told by a random stranger "Your baby's too thin!"

http://community.livejournal.com/august_2006/382486.html
ailbhe: (couple)

Mothers are terribly selfish folk. We abandon our kids and work in the smoke. We stay at home leeching the lives of our men, hoping to be well-kept idle women. We feed babies from bottles, or maybe from breasts, and it's either too distant or sexually obsessed. We give toddlers attention - too little, too much - and we don't seem to worry about keeping in touch with the little dears' needs and desires and fears, or the weird reddish patch to the rear of the ears. We refuse to contribute to the needs of the world, staying at home like little It girls, or we work and demand that we still be allowed to bring up our children, even have them around. A parasite true is the mother of young, and I must say, I've quite enjoyed being one.

(I really meant to say that I don't see why Rob and I should take up two jobs, when we only need one, and other people out there are unemployed and looking. Should I transfer the above to the lnc journal?)

ailbhe: (Default)

We are bringing Linnea's bedtime back to normal.

Something someone said lately made me think this: No matter how much thought a mother has put into her childrearing decisions, hearing someone else (especially a stranger) state that they do it differently feels like criticism. I'm pretty sure this is true for those of us who practice "attachment parenting" type stuff - lots of carrying and cuddles and snuggling to sleep and always responding to crying and so on - and I wouldn't be surprised if it's also true for the other end of the scale, the cry-it-out gang.

"Oh," says the observing parent as you pace the garden with your infant talking about the moon in a soporific tone at 9 o'clock at night, "We always put Jim-Bob down at 7 pm and he just sleeps. Of course, we never went to him when he was little unless he was hungry." Oh, says the pacing parent, well that's just great, but it wouldn't work for Susie-Mae. So just drop dead, and mind the gardenias.

"You're giving him chocolate? We didn't let any artificial sugars past her lips until she graduated highschool."(You sent her to high school? Why didn't you educate her yourself in a yurt?)

... and so on, and so forth.

Of course, the online journal circle is a particularly fine place for this kind of interaction to spring up, because the tone of interested, non-judgemental surprise doesn't appear in the words as typed. And there's always lots of support for anyone who declares that breastfeeders are perverts creating Oedipus complexes or that formula feeders are child abusers creating eating disorders. But I'm interested to know whether this criticism - defense reaction is as prevalent as I think it is, or whether I'm just overreacting to vitriol in snark communities, or whether I'm just too defensive and need to learn to relax, man, and have faith in myself. Yo.

Today, by 10 am, I had washed, dressed, breakfasted, self and Linnea. Put on and hung out a load of laundry. Hoovered one floor and washed three others (all small). Washed the breakfast / late night snack dishes. Played in the garden with Linnea and played in her bedroom - I gave her the ball-pool balls and we had a great time. And I'd written a pome, and put dinner in the slow cooker, and tidied up and stuff.

I really, really need to stop feeling like I don't do enough. That's not half bad for a morning's work, especially when you consider that I involve Linnea in all that I do (from a sense of sharing and caring, you understand, not because I have no option - it's a parenting style decision so that she grows up a well-rounded individual, not an eardrum-preserving decision so that I grow up without tinitus in the key of whinge).

ailbhe: (thinking)

  • Any refined sugar
  • Any added salt
  • Too much banana
  • Too much citrus
  • Too much potato
  • Peanuts
  • Gluten
  • Cow's dairy produce except milk
  • Cow's dairy produce except live yoghurt
  • Live yoghurt
  • Soya products
  • Pickles
  • Especially olives with garlic and chili
  • Baby rice
  • Adult rice
  • Wholegrains
  • White / refined grains
  • Too much fruit
  • Too much meat
  • Too much starch

Also, many toddlers have not enough fat in their diets, apparently. And not enough fruit. And not enough meat. And not enough fibre. Just about the only thing everyone agrees on is salt and sugar. Oh, and peanuts. People are pretty sure about peanuts.

Luckily, it's hot enough that babies aren't all that hungry anyway, round these here parts...

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